Conquering The Mountain Passes
What a day!! RAAM racers cross three major mountain passes in the Rockies: Wolf Creek, La Veta, and Cucharas. Mark arose Friday morning west of Cortez, Colorado and spent the day covering much of the Rockies. Most significantly he cross the Wolf Creek and Le Veta passes. Wolf Creek represents the highest elevation of the race at 11,856 ft. The route book informs racers that the elevation is over two miles for a couple miles around the summit. Mark had a solid performance on this climb. Informal measures had his climbing time as the fastest of the riders who passed ahead of him. Even RAAM Media took note.
From there Mark screamed across the San Luis Valley heading toward the day’s second major climb: La Veta pass. At 9,426, La Veta is no slouch, but the grade is not as steep as Wolf Creek. He summited La Veta in the wee hours of the night before stopping for a rest in the valley beyond.
He set out on the final climb, Cucharas Pass, early this morning and cleared the summit around 6am RAAM Time (EDT). Below we see a smiling Mark, happy to have the big passes behind him.
Mark remains in third position among the U50 solo men, trailing race leader Christoph Strasser by some 280 miles and Patric Gruener by less than 90 miles. Solo male 50-59 leader Marco Baloh is near Gruener, putting Mark 4th on the road.
Guedo Loehr (solo male 50-59) continues to motivate Mark from behind, generally within 10 miles of Mark’s position. Brian Toone remains in fourth position in the U50 solo men, trailing by 40 miles or so (a distance that could easily evaporate during a sleep stop). Tom McKenna follows in 5th position.
Women’s race leader Sarah Cooper is in eight position on the road.
From here the racers descend the high mountains and head toward Kansas. Strasser appears to be on track for another uncontested win, but anything can happen. He has more than half of the race course to cover and continues to ride with less than 2 hours of stopped time daily. Baloh and Gruener seem to be motivating each other. How long they can maintain the pace is unknown. Both are averaging between 21 and 22 hours of riding daily. There is a lot of racing remaining where much can change in the span of a few hours. In the meantime, keep sending encouraging words Mark’s way.
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